A shortage of urologists is an issue beyond just Southland, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons says.

Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act reveal Health New Zealand is transferring patients as far as Christchurch and offering $3000 a day to locums while Southland lacks a permanent full-time urologist.

Royal Australasian College of Surgeons chairperson Dr Sharon English told Morning Report the shortage extended to other regions including Tauranga and Nelson hospitals where locums were used regularly.

"This is a problem that exists not only in Southland but other rural areas of New Zealand. There's a lot of places with a shortage of urologists."

English said a number of hospitals needed to use locums to make sure the service continued to run.

The issue, English said, was retaining trainees in New Zealand.

"Trainees in New Zealand aren't given any indication there is a job they can come back to and as their training they tend to do a year overseas, to get more specialist training, work with different urologists, but if they get offered a job they may decide to stay and we've lost a number of trainees to Australia in recent years."

English said trainees going overseas needed to know they had a job coming up they could go back to.

The immediate solution to the shortages could only be someone in New Zealand taking up the jobs, English said, which would leave a hole somewhere else.

Morning Report invited Health New Zealand to come on the show and respond, but was yet to be taken up on the offer.

On Thursday, Health New Zealand acknowledged patients were waiting longer than it wanted in Southland but said patients were being triaged according to their need and wait time.

It said it was committed to strengthening its urology workforce.